How Cleaning Up Your Food and Fitness Routine Will Help You Feel Better

How Cleaning Up Your Food and Fitness Routine Will Help You Feel Better

How you treat your body has a direct correlation to how you feel. If your body gets minimal exercise and overindulges on unhealthy foods, you are bound to feel poorly. Revamping your diet and your exercise routines will have an enormously positive impact on both your physical and mental well being. Here are a few ways you can start your journey to wellness and how they will benefit you.

Eat For Health, Not Convenience

Though eating pre-made foods or ordering from restaurants can be very tempting on a busy schedule, making convenience foods a staple is detrimental. Most pre-made foods are more expensive in the long run, full of preservatives, and nutritionally lacking. If you’re too busy to cook every day, pick a day to prepare meals for the week. Spend a day cooking freezer meals to thaw as the week progresses. Another good option is a slow cooker. You can prep meals in the mornings and have dinner ready when you get home from work. These also make for excellent leftovers.

Preparing your own meals will allow you to ensure that you have no nutritional gaps in your diet. Low levels of any key nutrient have detrimental effects whether those effects are mental or physical. For example, a lack of folic acid can worsen the effects of depression while a lack of magnesium can cause insomnia. With a well-rounded diet (and possibly a meeting with a nutritionist), you can ensure that you are as physically and mentally healthy as possible by preventing such deficiencies.

Eliminate Processed Foods

Eating a doughnut or a slice of grocery store cake can be extremely enticing particularly if you’ve had a bad day. Unfortunately, studies are showing that comfort foods, while delicious, can actually make you feel worse. For that matter, 26 million Americans are affected by diabetes, and this stuff isn’t helping. The guilt and lack of nutrition associated with eating that entire box of macaroni and cheese outweighs any comfort you may have derived from eating it. Eating excessive sugars and fats decrease positive self-image and diminish the body’s function. It’s no wonder comfort food doesn’t actually work.

Instead of checking out the case of doughnuts while grocery shopping, find a vegan mug cake recipe to make at home. Vegan desserts utilize fruit sugars and minimally processed plant sugars which satiate your sweet tooth without damaging your healthy lifestyle. Mug cake recipes are small, reasonably sized portions that can be made in any microwave in under five minutes. Regardless of what you’re craving, there is always a healthy alternative.

Find a Fun Exercise

Rather than leaning on traditional exercise methods, find something you enjoy. If exercise is a chore, it becomes another added stress to your day which negates its positive effects.

Yoga is a great exercise that incorporates mindfulness and mental health as well as physical. Tai Chi is another similar option that is particularly good for those with physical disabilities. Even walking the dog for a half an hour is a good way to keep your body active and your mind happy. All that matters is you are exercising regularly in a way you enjoy. It’s as simple as that.

Rewriting your recipe book and your exercise schedule does not have to be a life upheaval. Living well can be the result of just a few simple changes in your life like buying a crockpot or creating a vegan mug cake Pinterest board. The most difficult aspect is relinquishing your grip on old habits and embracing the ones that will make you feel good both inside and out. Luckily for you, that feeling isn’t too far away.

About The Author

Katybeth Dee was inspired to co-create SelfExam.org after her sister was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 23. She hopes to use the site to spread awareness on preventing illness, as well as lend support to those currently facing their own medical battles. She lives in California with her golden retriever, Luna.

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